Murder [and Baklava] (A European Voyage #1)- Blake Pierce Page 0,11

that a foreigner was going to the trouble to speak with him in his own language.

“It’s hard to say,” London said as the years seemed to gape behind her. “Not since the last century, I guess.”

The driver chuckled.

“That narrows it down to about a hundred years,” he said.

London chuckled as well.

“Well then, I guess it was sometime during the 1990s,” she said.

“That’s not as long ago as it sounds. And Budapest never changes much, at least not in its heart.”

The driver pointed to a large modern building near the riverbank. It had enormous windows fronted by straight, simple columns and angular shapes on the roof.

“You wouldn’t have seen that building before,” he said. “It’s the Müpa Budapest, a cultural center that opened in 2005.”

As they drove past the Müpa, the driver pointed to another large, eccentrically shaped building with a rounded entrance. “And that’s the Hungarian National Theatre. It opened in 2002. Odd to look at, isn’t it? At least many people who live here think so.”

The dates made London feel just a little queasy.

Has it really been that long since I was here? she thought.

She suddenly felt older than she usually thought of herself as being. But at least she was still able to ask some questions in Hungarian—and even better, she could understand most of the replies.

And she could see that much of the city really hadn’t changed. Most of it was too rooted and monumental to ever give way to time. Across the river she could see the Citadella, a mighty stone fortress that had been built on that hilltop in the nineteenth century. Farther along the opposite bank was the breathtaking Buda Castle, more than a mile across with a magnificent dome rising in its center. It loomed ever larger as they continued along the riverfront.

The sight of the castle gave her a pang as she remembered visiting it with her parents when she’d been just a little girl. Her mom and dad had taken her there for several days on end to explore the endless wonders of the castle—its galleries, crown jewels, sculptures, fountains, and historical rooms.

It seems like just yesterday, she thought.

But many years had passed, and for a moment London felt sharply how much she missed her mother. She refused to let herself slip into a state of melancholy, though. There were simply too many wonderful things to see.

Just beyond the castle, the massive Szécheny Chain Bridge stretched over the Danube. London knew that the historic bridge had been built in 1849 to bring together three cities—Buda, Pest, and Obuda—into the single city of Budapest.

The driver slowed as they neared the bridge. London felt a tingle of excitement as she spotted the name Nachtmusik on the hull of a ship docked there.

There it is! she realized.

The boat was sleek and somewhat smaller than the other cruise-line riverboats docked along the bank, but it was built in the same low, elongated style. Like the others, it was some twenty yards out on the water, and a long, canopied gangway connected it to the stone embankment.

The driver parked the cab, got London’s luggage out of the trunk, and set it down at the end of the gangway. London paid him and thanked him, then stood amid her suitcases staring at the boat as he drove away.

Such a cozy little vessel was a startling sight after years of having worked on massive ocean-going cruise ships that could hold literally thousands of passengers. As much as she’d always loved her work, she’d grown tired of the sheer vastness of those larger ships.

She immediately felt a burst of affection for this sleek, friendly-looking vessel. It was going to be her new home for the near future, and she felt good about that.

Just as London stepped toward the gangway, she heard a voice call out from the other end of the gangway.

“London Rose! As I live and breathe!”

London laughed with delight as she recognized the Bronx accent that had reached her across the water. The tall blond woman dashing across the gangway toward her was her old friend Elsie Sloan.

“Elsie!” London cried. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing! The last I heard you were cruising the Caribbean.”

“And the last I heard, you were sailing all around Eastern Asia.”

“Well, times change.”

“They do at that,” London said, struck by how true those words seemed right at the moment. As they hugged and greeted each other, London realized that Elsie hadn’t actually changed since they’d worked a